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account of Angles

...writers to denote their vernacular tongue. The Angles are first mentioned by Tacitus (1st century
ce) as worshippers of the deity Nerthus. According to the Venerable Bede in the
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, their Continental homeland was centred in Angulus, traditionally identified as the Angeln district in Schleswig between the Schlei inlet and the...

Alfred’s translation

...own translations and those of his helpers, he made available English versions of “those books most necessary for all men to know,” books that would lead them to wisdom and virtue. The
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by the English historian Bede, and the
Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans, by Paulus Orosius, a 5th-century theologian—neither...

biographical literature

...but vividly, from firsthand observation, the lives and personalities of the four grandsons of Clovis and their fierce queens in Merovingian Gaul of the 6th century. Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, of the 8th century, though lacking the immediacy and exuberance—and the violent protagonists—of Gregory, presents some valuable...

Caedmon’s life

...fragmentary hymn to the creation remains a symbol of the adaptation of the aristocratic-heroic Anglo-Saxon verse tradition to the expression of Christian themes. His story is known from Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which tells how Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman, retired from company one night in shame because he could not comply with the demand made of each...

discussed in biography

Anglo-Saxon theologian, historian, and chronologist, best known today for his
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“
Ecclesiastical History of the English People”), a source vital to the history of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. During his lifetime and throughout the Middle Ages Bede’s reputation was based mainly on his scriptural...

eclipses

In the year 733
ce the continuation of Bede’s
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“
Ecclesiastical History of the English People”) contains an early reference to an annular eclipse on a date corresponding to August 14. When the eclipse was at its height, “almost the whole of the Sun’s disk seemed to be like a black and horrid shield.” Bede...

historiography

...the Franks from the perspective of the old Gallo-Roman aristocracy, and St. Bede the Venerable (672/673–735) composed the
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (
Ecclesiastical History of the English People). For both authors, the invaders, once converted to orthodox (Roman) Christianity, were instrumental in repressing heresy: the Franks opposed...

Latin literature

...In the kingdom of Northumbria, particularly open to influence of Irish monastic learning, St. Bede the Venerable devoted his life to scholarship. The culmination of his work is the
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (
The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England), completed in 731. Synthesized from a variety of sources, literary and nonliterary, the work...

Old English literature

...the conversion of King Aethelberht I of Kent to Christianity about 600, there is no evidence that the English wrote poetry in their own language. But St. Bede the Venerable, in his
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“
Ecclesiastical History of the English People”), wrote that in the late 7th century Caedmon, an illiterate Northumbrian cowherd, was...

pointed minuscule script

...famous landmarks. A second distinctive Insular script was the pointed minuscule that, by the 8th century, was beginning to attain the status of a book hand, as witness the Venerable Bede in his
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“
Ecclesiastical History of the English People”), written in about 731. Both Insular scripts were carried to the Continent by missionaries and...

Saint Ninian’s missions

...as a bishop, and, in Aelred’s narrative, traveled through Gaul on his return journey, along the way befriending St. Martin of Tours. An earlier source, the Venerable Bede’s 8th-century
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, implies that Ninian began the conversion of the Picts, a notion based on even earlier—and not entirely trustworthy—accounts of the...

Scottish history

...styles of Christianity, chose the Roman version. There had been differences over such observances as the dating of Easter, but no one regarded the Celtic monks as schismatics. The
Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede the Venerable (died 735), a monk of Jarrow in Northumbria, is a first-rate source for the early Anglo-Saxon history and shows remarkable...

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Colman of Lindisfarne

Although the Venerable Bede disapproved of the Celtic customs, he had high praise for Colman in his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, considered to be the best source for Colman’s life at Lindisfarne. He is styled Colman of Lindisfarne to distinguish him from numerous other saints named Colman who are listed in the Irish martyrologies.

Germanic religion

The Venerable Bede, writing his
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“
Ecclesiastical History of the English People”) early in the 8th century, showed much interest in the conversion of the English and some in their earlier religion. The lives of Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries who worked among Germanic peoples on the Continent (
e.g., Columbanus, Willibrord, and...